Things I Like Are Cool – Things I Hate Suck

Beavis and Butthead had a very simple rule for cool:

“Things I like are cool.  Things I hate suck.”

Never mind the circular reasoning, nor the a priori consequences. For most of us, we live with the inconsistency anyway.

However, when it comes to policy and governance, we expect a little better. Particularly when the argument at hand is squarely on the shoulders of defining the Objective from the Subjective.

Which brings us to this fascinating article from the New York Times, about the growing war between the White House and the part of Fox News that does news instead of opinion.

In recent weeks, Fox has been snubbed by the administration. The story details a frank and secret meeting between David Axelrod and Roger Ailes, that appeared to have cooled things a bit – until flaring up again.

Telling, is this admission about the squabbling:

“We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the deputy White House communications director.

There are two issues loaded into this simple declaration.

First is the use of the phrase “aided and abetted.” True, competitors like Jake Tapper questioned the administration about how Fox was being singled out. But “aiding and abetting” sounds like criminal language, and was not used by accident. It’s a clear hint that opposing this administration is akin to being rogue, if not downright illegal.

But let’s get beyond the connotations of the phrase, and instead focus on the circular reasoning it represents. The nature of the argument is thus:

• Fox News is not objective, but brings a subjective slant.
• ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and CBS are all objective.
• ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and CBS all agree that Fox News is a news organization.

Now, if several news outlets are in agreement on a set of facts, you would think they are objectively telling you the truth.

Yet, in this case, while accusing Fox of carrying a subjective agenda, the Obama White House also accuses the rest of the media for perpetuating that fiction.

Who is being Objective and who is being Subjective here?

Exacerbating this sentiment was the admission by many of those mainstream outlets, including the Times, that it was not sufficiently in touch with what was being reported on Fox:

Executives at other news organizations, including The New York Times, had publicly said that their newsrooms had not been fast enough in following stories that Fox News, to the administration’s chagrin, had been heavily covering through the summer and early fall — namely, past statements and affiliations of the White House adviser Van Jones that ultimately led to his resignation and questions surrounding the community activist group Acorn.

The real complaint, then, is that Fox news has an agenda that the “mainstream (non-partisan) media” then adopted as worthy of interest.

I guess that must be the enabling aiding-and-abeting behavior.

It’s getting ugly again

Don’t take my word for it.

The Moderate Voice (and if there were ever a time for them this is it) runs down a laundry list of reactions to President Obama’s address to schoolchildren.

The polarization is just plain silly, and downright dangerous. Quoting the post:

The present frenzy suggests that the seeds are now being sowed for a mega-polarized America that could be almost ungovernable in the 21st century if this trend continues unabated.

If Republicans and conservatives make the very legitimacy of Obama his patriotism — even the safety of allowing little kids listen to him tell them to stay in school and think about helping their community — the issue, and link his name to Hitler and/or Nazism, precisely how do they think Democrats and the left will respond next time a GOPer is in power? How will the next Republican President be treated in terms of legitimacy and doing what he/she feels is in the best interest of the country? The bar on discourse is being lowered and lower and right now it’s touching the soil.

The only problem I have with the above is the blame for conservatives and Republicans for “lowering the bar.”

The seeds were planted with eight years of complaining about “President Select” and “stolen Florida” and Lord knows how many other attacks on the process. The Left never treated Bush-the-younger with any degree of legitimacy, borne out in the way they portrayed him.

How many Bush=Hitler references can you find?

Do you think the Left – in any manner – gets a pass?

We’ve been going down this road for a long time, and we might actually get to see the flip side of John Edwards’ “Two Americas” vision. Only this time we’ll get two radically polarized factions that can look at the same set of objective facts and see two wildly different realities. They will, of course, be mutually exclusive – yet both completely consistent with the worldview and premises of the factions.

Now — my response to the people who are pulling their kids out of school today?

Why don’t you teach your kids how to think for themselves? There’s a far greater chance that your youngster will be introduced to spurious views, partisan ideology or religious rhetoric coming from the mouths of teachers and administrators. Don’t get spun up by the idea that the President will somehow hold more sway than the people who know your kid on a first-name basis.

Inoculate them with the ability and desire to think for themselves, and to ask questions about the implications of ideas. For instance, if the idea is that “no one should do without X,” then teach your kids to ask how much X-for-all would cost, and who would pay for all that X, and what kind of world we’d live in with free-X.

Quit whining — put on your big boy pants — and take responsibility for your kids.

Earmarks aren’t bad, and pork is more than a disagreement

Jeff Rosenberg at the Twin Cities Daily Liberal has an outstanding post illustrating how meaningful discussions of earmarked funds and pork-barrel spending have been all but eliminated from current political discourse. Due to bandwagon bashing of not only truly wasteful expenditures but any spending someone simply isn’t a fan of, we’ve allowed discussion of this serious issue to be neutered.

Rosenberg writes:

Think about this for a moment: If our members of Congress aren’t inserting spending into spending bills, who’s supposed to be doing it? The reason all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives is that the representatives understand their districts and their needs. As long as spending bills stay within established budget guidelines, doesn’t it make sense to let our representatives direct the spending where it’s needed most?

That’s not to say that earmarks aren’t abused to create real pork-barrel spending. But just because a Congressman inserts an earmark into a bill for a local spending project doesn’t make it “pork.” Pork-barrel spending occurs when that earmark is used for spending that doesn’t really meet any need other than shoveling money to the Representative’s district.

Read the original: “Pork: The most meaningless word in politics.” And thanks for writing it, Jeff.

Photo courtesy of kuow on Flickr

The logic of Bush’s legacy

I have no intent to argue the ups and downs of Bush’s presidency or the legacy thereof. If you want to argue about President Bush, please look elsewhere.

The Libertarian Party has been publishing a series of “Monday Messages,” both in e-mails it sends to folks who’ve signed up for such info and on its own Web site. The message from this past Monday contained a bit of a logical confusion I wanted to share here.

The Monday Message picked apart, roughly point by point, an article written by Fred Barnes about the “ten things the president got right.” I became too distracted by an illogical argument and had to stop reading after this (plain text is from the LP’s message; bold text is the LP quoting Barnes):

The following are a handful of assertions made by Barnes as achievements of the Bush administration in the last eight years, and my responses to these statements:

Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved American lives. How many thousands of lives? We’ll never know.

The idea that Bush has saved lives in the so-called “War on Terror” isn’t exactly logical, and it isn’t exactly true. Data compiled by the RAND Corporation actually shows dramatic increases in deaths caused by global terrorism following the election of George Bush to office.

There’s a lot to argue with in the LP’s message and in Barnes’ original article, but I’m hung up on one item that seems to be a glaring violation of logic.

“Data compiled by the RAND Corporation actually shows dramatic increases in deaths caused by global terrorism following the election of George Bush to office.”

That does not mean George Bush did not prevent thousands of deaths, nor, of course, does it mean George Bush caused any deaths. George Bush was president when this typhoon struck and killed hundreds of thousands — not to mention, Tony Blair was at the helm in England, as well. Are they to blame for the typhoon?

Remember: Correlation does not equal causation.

Enemies of enemies are not friends

Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing talkers have been talking about their fears that a Democrat-controlled Washington will bring back the Fairness Doctrine, or something that brings the same net effect. By forcing stations to alter their content, it would present incentives to scrap talk radio altogether.

Maybe that’s the fear that prompted Air America founder Jon Sinton to express his objection to the Fairness Doctrine in the ultra-liberal Wall Street Journal:

When we founded Air America, we aimed to establish a talk network that lived at the intersection of politics and entertainment. Of course, we were motivated by our political leanings. But as a lifelong broadcaster, I was certain that at least half the American audience was underserved by conservative talk radio. Here was an opportunity to capture listeners turned off by the likes of, say, Sean Hannity. The business opportunity was enticing.

It never occurred to me to argue for reimposing the Fairness Doctrine. Instead, I sought to capitalize on the other side of a market the right already had built.

Or maybe it’s just a realization that there’s no need for it.  Sinton lays out a great case for the circumstances surrounding the original Fairness Doctrine, and how none of them really apply today.  In doing so, he has positioned himself well as a voice of reason.

It’s often assumed that the Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend. Many liberals would like nothing better than to see the Fairness Doctrine if for no other reason that the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys of the world will have a dent in their reach. However, Sinton takes a broader tack that speaks from a position of strength — he’s not afraid of the marketplace of ideas. He’s convinced his worldview can win on merit.

Tactically speaking, there are often openings you can exploit in your opponent’s statements and positions. Just don’t assume that every one of them needs to be employed, as some can backfire and others may leave you in a stronger position because you took the higher road.